ajsadauskas
@alcoholicorn Yeah, that's not how it tends to work in Australia.
What happens is a state government puts up a good chunk of time construction costs (as much as half in some cases), plus public land.
In some cases, the freeway already exists, but the state government wants one more lane built, because it thinks that will ease congestion (as happened with sections of the Tullamarine and Monash Freeways in Melbourne).
It gets handed off to Transurban, who builds it under a long-term operating agreement (30 years is common).
In some cases, the agreements have clauses saying railways that compete with the toll road can't be built.
As the end of the lease approaches, Transurban offers to build one more lane — in exchange for extending the agreement.
@alcoholicorn It is when it has been privatised to a company that pretty much pays no tax (hi Transurban!), for roads that taxpayers helped to pay for, and those toll roads connect car dependent suburbs that have next to no public transport.
@Gurre @fuck_cars The road lobby's big answer to the mess they've created with the Rozelle Interchange is to build a second road tunnel under Sydney Harbour.
Engineers at the inquiry into the Rozelle Interchange fiasco have already testified that will only create traffic jams elsewhere on the road network: https://aus.social/@ajsadauskas/112383313109173146
Just one more lane, bro!
@Ilandar Most major platforms are based in the US.
A DMCA request basically means the flagged content is taken down globally, not just for the US.
If the person who uploaded that content is not a US citizen, it still gets pulled.
@LostXOR @yogthos @NoIWontPickAName @technology There's a few other steps they could potentially take.
The first would be to block any financial institution in the US, or that deals with the US, from sending any payments to or from ByteDance's accounts.
They could also freeze any assets currently held by US financial institutions.
Second, if they can get Apple, Microsoft, and Google on board to help do their bidding, they could pull the ByteDance app from the Apple and Google Play app stores.
That includes removing it from any apps where it's already installed. Globally.
They could also request that TikTok is removed from Google and Bing search results.
On top of this, they could do what you suggested, and ask ISPs and mobile carriers to block domains and IP addresses used by ByteDance.
And the US could apply diplomatic pressure on other countries to implement similar financial and ISP-level blocks and bans.
So, potentially, it's also blocked in the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and elsewhere.
@shirro @MHLoppy @australia The irony here is that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act is a piece of US legislation that is regularly used to take down content globally. Even when it's posted by people who aren't Americans.
@crispyflagstones @yogthos Someone is named @dansup who also created @pixelfed, the app is called Loops, you can follow his progress here: @loops
@shirro @tardigrada
Not just *would*, but *has*.
Here's the "free speech absolutist" Elon Musk, in his own words, in 2023:
"The rules in India for what can appear on social media are quite strict, and we can’t go beyond the laws of a country … If we have a choice of either our people go to prison or we comply with the laws, we will comply with the laws."
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/05/29/tech/elon-musk-twitter-government-takedown/index.html
@skribe @danbeeston @Salvo The other option would be to set up an official gov.au Mastodon instance, and give each government department, agency, and Parliamentarian an official account.
People can then have their choice of instance, whether that's community run or private (e.g. Threads).
In the longer term, there might be scope for some other government institutions — particularly universities — to set up their own instances as well.
@AllNewTypeFace Of course there were.
For commuters:
* More densification around existing stations and tram lines instead of suburban sprawl.
* Upgrading buses across Melbourne to a 10-minute minimum frequency and straightening out existing bus routes.
* Rolling out high-capacity signalling and automatic train control across the Melbourne suburban rail network
* Building Metro 2 from Newport to Clifton Hill would double the number of trains that can run on the Hurstbridge and Mernda lines.
* Building the Doncaster Railway.
* Building the Heidelberg to Box Hill section of the SRL first.
* Extending the 48 tram to Doncaster and giving it dedicated lanes for more of its journey.
And then for freight, there's a bunch of things too:
* Converting more suburban lines to dual gauge.
* Converting more regional Victorian lines to standard gauge
* Electrifying regional rail and freight services
* Building more multimodal facilities near existing rail lines.